Fiorello LaGuardia was a New Deal Republican, a man who supported President Franklin Roosevelt and who used that support to help change New York City, to cut off patronage from the Tammany system, and to revitalize New York City, restore public faith, unify the transit system, built low-cost public housing, playgrounds and parks; put money into airports, reorganized the police force, and reestablished the idea of merit employment in place of patronage jobs. In short, in his domineering and authoritarian three terms, he literally turned the New York political machine on its head; used his connections with the White House to revamp New York City in the midst of the Depression, and gave New York City a chance to become a modern, world-class city. While criticized for being heavy-handed, his reforms were carefully orchestrated to focus on those areas that had been hardest hit by the economic woes of the...
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